Arise, O LORD, in your anger, lift up yourself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that you have commanded.

Arise, O LORD, in your anger, lift up yourself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that you have commanded.
 
The title is Psalms 7:6, a Psalm directly connected to Habakkuk 3 and the LORD catching His people away from their enemies and into His presence. In the above verse, we see the LORD’s anger, His righteous indignation, is focused on and contrasted against the rage of the enemies of His people and His anointed. In previous posts, we have seen the LORD doesn’t punish the world, doesn’t take vengeance on the whole world because of the evil of the few, those attacking and manipulating the innocent and the ignorant. Even the acts of nature, the creations of nature’s God, occur to remind us of how little we are in control, and of the fragility of mortal man and what he creates.
 
This understanding brings us to the later point made in the opening passage; God will awaken to judgment, which is defined in these chapters mentioned above and in many prior posts. The concept of judgment is seen in Habakkuk 3:8, asking, “Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was Your anger against the rivers? was Your wrath against the sea, that You did ride upon Your horses and Your chariots of salvation?”
 
We know the rivers are used to tell of how the waters flow into the sea; symbolically describing the means by which words and ideas are transmitted to the masses. The verse asks if the LORD is displeased at the means, which leaves us to logically conclude, His displeasure is toward the content. It continues by asking if His wrath is against the sea, that He would use His power and strength (horses and chariots) against the people He has come to save?
The next verse then tells of the mountains seeing Him, as He comes for the salvation of His people; which is speaking of the powers risen from the earth. They are defined in the next verse as the sun and the moon, which we know represent the church and civil governments, which were created to shine and reflect God’s righteous rule as light on the earth. As we know, this light is understanding reflected in and by promulgating truth, justice, and equity regardless of a person’s measurable station.
 
The unjust mountains tremble at seeing and hearing this, and the sun and the moon stand still in their place. They realize the LORD has come to shake the wicked from the high places and to remove those infesting these institutions.
 
Ephesians 6
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the LORD, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
 
Friends, these words are the word of God, spoken here by my hand to the world (“my tongue is the pen of a ready writer”). The wicked in power should know their time is up, and God’s wrath and judgment are against them and their evil deeds.
 
Thus says the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, I tell you the same as I told the Egyptian: “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.”
 
Habakkuk 3
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
 
The name Habakkuk is from the Hebrew word chabaq meaning to take hold of, as in to clasp or fold the hands. It is telling of when God brings those in error back into the fold of His flock, taking them by the hand to himself, and there shall they ever be with the LORD.
 
Friends, these chapters speak of the event the false prophets have by their ignorance distorted into the rapture, the harpazo, meaning to seize upon and translated as “caught up.”
 
The name Shigionoth, is actually the compounding of two Hebrew words: shagah, which means to enrapture (snatch away – as in John 10:12, when the wolf catches the sheep) into error or ignorance. It is speaking of those held in the place the LORD comes to snatch them away from (by correction). The other word is yonah, the same as Jonah, and from the same word as is rendered Greece (yavan – mire), all from the word yayin, meaning wine, for its intoxicating power.
 
The word is referring us directly to the error of Jonah and the place it took him, where he was held until he repented and came to his senses. The error was to not go to those the LORD had sent him, to call them to repentance. He was held in the grave among the dead, until he was quickened to life by once again looking to the LORD, hearing and obeying His commandment.
 
Jonah 2
1 Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly [from the agitation of the world that had swallowed him up],
2 And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of Sheol [the habitation of the dead] cried I, and you heard my voice [see Isaiah 49:8 below].
3 For you have cast me into the deep [into the darkness of not understanding], in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all your billows and your waves passed over me [the pride and troubles of the world and the agitation of the masses].
4 Then I said, I am cast out of your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.
5 The waters [the word of God defiles by the words of man’s erroneous ideas] compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet have you brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.
7 When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto you, into your holy temple.
8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
9 But I will sacrifice unto you with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
10 And the LORD spoke [and His word was heard and understood] unto the fish, and it vomited out [the agitation and the errors released what they held] Jonah upon the dry land [upon the place in need of God pure waters/word].
 
Habakkuk 3
2 O LORD, I have heard your speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman [this is referring us to the word taman – Strong’s #2934, meaning to hide (by covering), in secret by the defiled understanding], and the Holy One from mount Paran [from pa’ar, Strong’s #6286, meaning to gleam, and to explain and make clear]. Selah. His glory [His uncovering covers the heavens with light] covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns [power as rays of light] coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.
5 Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.
6 He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan [I saw the high place of the earth in darkness] in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian [and the covering of strife – agitation and ignorance] did tremble.
8 Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was your anger against the rivers? was your wrath against the sea, that you did ride upon your horses and your chariots of salvation?
9 Your bow was made quite naked [His ways have become quite apparent], according to the oaths of the tribes [in accord with His promises of Salvation], even your word. Selah. You did cleave the earth with rivers [the rivers of His pure waters/word, spoken of in Revelation 22:1].
10 The mountains saw you, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by [this word of God]: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high [and the LORD is risen by His own power].
11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of your arrows they went, and at the shining of your glittering spear.
12 You did march through the land in indignation, you did thresh the heathen in anger.
13 You went forth for the salvation of your people [as promised], even for salvation with your anointed; you wounded the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering [uncovering the cause of the darkness] the foundation unto the neck [the whole head was the cause]. Selah.
14 You did strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
15 You did walk through the sea with your horses, through the heap of great waters [the words they cast out of their mouths, trying to stop the unstoppable rise].
16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice [Do you hear me now?]: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he comes up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops [those who have risen with the LORD, and have come out of the grave, from among the dead, when called].
17 Although the [the old] fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: [because the LORD has struck down the unrighteous shepherds who sold their souls, and the sheep have been freed to each go to their own house in peace. See the prior post and 1 Kings 22:17 and Revelation 18:4 – and Zechariah 3:10 below]
18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.
 
Psalms 7
1 O LORD my God, in you do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:
2 Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
3 O LORD my God, If I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands;
4 If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:)
5 Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honor in the dust. Selah.
6 Arise, O LORD, in your anger, lift up yourself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that you have commanded.
7 So shall the congregation of the people compass you about: for their sakes therefore return you on high.
8 The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.
9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God tries the hearts and reins [reasoning mind and conscience].
10 My defense is of God, which saves the upright in heart.
11 God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword [His word in my mouth]; he has bent his bow, and made it ready.
13 He has also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordained his arrows against the persecutors. [The wicked in high places, who He will suffer long but not forever.]
14 Behold, he travailed with iniquity, and has conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.
17 I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.
 
Isaiah 49
1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, you people, from far; The LORD has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name.
2 And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand has he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver has he hid me;
3 And said unto me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
4 Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
5 And now, says the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.
6 And he said, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose you.
8 Thus says the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation have I helped you: and I will preserve you, and give you for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9 That you may say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.
10 They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.
12 Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim [double].
13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD has comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, The LORD has forsaken me, and my LORD has forgotten me.
15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you.
16 Behold, I have graven you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
17 Your children shall make haste; your destroyers and they that made you waste shall go forth of you.
18 Lift up your eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live, says the LORD, you shall surely clothe you with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on you, as a bride does.
19 For your waste and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed you up shall be far away.
20 The children which you shall have, after you have lost the other, shall say again in your ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.
21 Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
22 Thus says the LORD God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
23 And kings shall be your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers: they shall bow down to you with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
25 But thus says the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contends with you, and I will save your children.
26 And I will feed them that oppress you with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.
 
Friends, it should be quite evident by now that the LORD has chosen me to speaks His word to the world. He seeks to do the same through as many as will receive Him and become the children of God by His purifying correction.
 
Isaiah 8
9 Associate yourselves [with the corruption and darkness], O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces.
10 Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.
11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,
12 Say you not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.
13 Sanctify [come out from among them and separate yourselves to the LORD only] the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary [an impenetrable fortress]; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem [those who remain among the old and corrupted].
15 And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.
16 Bind up the [this] testimony, seal the law among my disciples.
17 And I will wait upon the LORD, that hides his face from the house of Jacob [those still wrestling with His word, not knowing it the glory of His presence], and I will look for him.
18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion [from where He rules].
19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter [those who use their words to deceive and manipulate]: should not a people seek unto their God? [Should they look] for the living to the dead?
20 [Or] To the law and to the testimony[?]: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light [understanding] in them.
21 And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry [those who reject this word will hunger and not know it is for this word of God]: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward [ignorant of the fact that “God is with us”].
22 And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.
 
Zechariah 3
1 And he shewed me Joshua [Jesus – as the body of Christ – the priesthood being cleansed and renews outside the old order – as in Melchisedec] the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist [from the Hebrew word satan – who is resisting the purification] him.
2 And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke you, O Satan; even the LORD that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? [Jude 1:23, “And others save with fear, pulling them out (harpazo – again, the word distorted into the rapture – and here again seen in its true meaning) of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”]
3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy [defiled and corrupted ideas and ways] garments, and stood before the angel.
4 And he answered and spoke unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with change of raiment. [The change spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.]
5 And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments [the undefiled garments of the priest]. And the angel of the LORD stood by.
6 And the angel of the LORD protested [reiterated] unto Joshua, saying,
7 Thus says the LORD of hosts; If you will walk in my ways, and if you will keep my charge [2 Timothy 4:1 I charge you therefore before God, and the LORD Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch you in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry.], then you shall also judge my house, and shall also keep my courts, and I will give you places to walk among these that stand by.
8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you, and your fellows that sit before you: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch.
9 For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes [the seven churches will look to the new priesthood for their way forward]: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, says the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
10 In that day, says the LORD of hosts, shall you call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree [at his own house in peace – see 1 Kings 22:17]
 
Zechariah 4
1 And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep [the sleeping in Christ awaken].
2 And said unto me, What seest you? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon [all God’s people upon one foundation – Christ in us], and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:
3 And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
4 So I answered and spoke to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my LORD?
5 Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Know you not what these be? And I said, No, my LORD.
6 Then he answered and spoke unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel [born (after coming out) of confusion], saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit [in those who love and keep the word of God], says the LORD of hosts.
7 Who are you, O great mountain [established governments of church and state]? before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
8 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
9 The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me unto you.
10 For who has despised the day of small things [the day of this still small voice]? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven [the church as heavenly Jerusalem]; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
11 Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof?
12 And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves [see 1 John 5 below]?
13 And he answered me and said, Know you not what these be? And I said, No, my LORD.
14 Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the LORD of the whole earth.
 
1 John 5
6 This is he that came by water [the word of God] and blood [and willing to sacrifice to deliver it as received], even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father [the origin], the Word [that flows to the son on earth as pure waters], and the Holy Ghost [the deliverer of understanding]: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit [the understanding received], and the water [that are then rightly divided], and the blood [what occurs when the errors are willingly confronted – life flows out of the one delivering and into those receiving it]: and these three agree in one.
9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son.
10 He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself: he that believes not God has made him a liar; because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son.
11 And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

And Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found you: because you have sold yourself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.

 
The title is 1 Kings 21:20 and tells of when the Ahab the king of Israel (God’s people at large – the ten northern tribes) was found out by Elijah (Jehovah is God). We know from previous studies, Ahab was the culmination of what began under Jeroboam, which was to place calves (idols) in the place of God, and appoint priests, who we are told were devils, so the people wouldn’t go to Jerusalem where was God’s presence. We know Ahab is the one who turned this idol worship into Baal worship, removing even the pretense that God was there. We know the name Ahab, literally meaning uncle (father’s brother), is later used as the mean to invoke these ideas.
 
During this confrontation, Ahab actually humbles himself, and the LORD delays his self-destruction until the days of his son.
 
1 Kings 21
25 But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
26 And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites [those promoting themselves to prominence], whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
27 And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.
28 And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite [in the captivity], saying,
29 See you how Ahab humbles himself before me? because he humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.
 
In the following chapter, we read of the time when the LORD puts a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets, which accomplishes the king’s end. More importantly, we are told this is the smiting of the shepherd so that all the sheep may each return to their own houses in peace. This smiting is as discussed in prior posts, which we’ve seen in Zechariah 13:7.
 
1 Kings 22
14 And Micaiah [same as Michael – who is like God] said, As the LORD lives, what the LORD says unto me, that will I speak.
15 So he came to the king. And the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go against Ramothgilead [the height of idol worship at the heap of testimony against it] to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, Go, and prosper: for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king.
16 And the king said unto him, How many times shall I adjure you that you tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the LORD?
17 And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.
18 And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat [Jehovah has judged], Did I not tell you that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil?
19 And he said, Hear you therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
20 And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.
21 And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.
22 And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, You shall persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.
23 Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets [the prophets of this time – who have not seen nor heard anything], and the LORD has spoken evil concerning you.
24 But Zedekiah [the self-righteous who call themselves by the name of God – the false prophets] the son of Chenaanah [the sons of Cain – see 1 John 3:12] went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto you?
25 And Micaiah said, Behold, you shall see in that day, when you shall go into an inner chamber to hide yourself.
26 And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and carry him back unto Amon [the “experts” of the time who rule over the city] the governor of the city, and to Joash [given by Jehovah] the king’s son;
27 And say, Thus said the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.
28 And Micaiah said, If you return at all in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you.
29 So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramothgilead.
30 And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put you on your robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself, and went into the battle.
31 But the king of Syria [those who have elevated themselves] commanded his thirty and two captains that had rule over his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel.
32 And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, Surely it is the king of Israel. And they turned aside to fight against him: and Jehoshaphat cried out.
33 And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots perceived that it was not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him.
34 And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness: wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn your hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded.
35 And the battle increased that day: and the king was stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even: and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot.
36 And there went a proclamation throughout the host about the going down of the sun, saying, Every man to his city, and every man to his own country.
 
Zechariah 13
1 In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.
2 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, You shall not live; for you speak lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesies.
4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he has prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:
5 But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.
6 And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in your hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.
7 Awake, O sword [this word of God], against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, says the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
8 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, says the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
 
When 1 Kings 21:25 tells of Ahab as he who did “sell” himself, the Hebrew word used is makar, meaning to sell as a slave. It’s the word used in Zechariah 11:5 to tell of when the shepherds have no pity on those they “sell.” This passage is the word of the LORD against the false prophets who promise God’s people liberty while themselves are in bondage to their false doctrines.
 
1 Peter 2
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ [see Hosea 4:1 thru 6], they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
 
1 Peter 3
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the LORD and Savior:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The LORD is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements [the corrupted ideas] shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the long-suffering of our LORD is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
 
Zechariah 11
1 Open your doors, O Lebanon [the origin of the pure waters], that the fire may devour your cedars [those who think they are upright].
2 Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen; because the mighty are spoiled: howl, O you oaks of Bashan; for the forest of the vintage is come down.
3 There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan [the dead] is spoiled.
4 Thus says the LORD my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;
5 Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell [makar] them say, Blessed be the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
6 For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, says the LORD: but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.
7 And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.
8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
9 Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dies, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.
10 And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
11 And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the LORD.
12 And I said unto them, If you think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was priced at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
14 Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even Bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 And the LORD said unto me, Take unto you yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
16 For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that stands still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
17 Woe to the idol shepherd that leaves the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. [As it is this day.]
 
Zechariah 12
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, says the LORD, which stretches forth the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem [the place, the people now taught and founded upon the undefiled word God, as it flowed from Him in pure form] a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, says the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
7 The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
8 In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
11 In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon [speaking of grieving for the trees mentioned in Zechariah 11:1 & 2 above] in the valley of Megiddon [Armageddon, at the time of the set meeting – rendezvous].
12 And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
13 The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
14 All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.
 
2 Kings 23 [This is the pattern of the real battle of Armageddon, which is now raging. It is a war of ideas and ways – and the LORD chooses to wage it this way, ]
1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.
3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven: and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Bethel.
5 And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.
6 And he brought out the grove from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people.
7 And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove.
8 And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba, and brake down the high places of the gates that were in the entering in of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on a man’s left hand at the gate of the city.
9 Nevertheless the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they did eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren.
10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech.
11 And he took away the horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun, at the entering in of the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathanmelech the chamberlain, which was in the suburbs, and burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
12 And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron.
13 And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.
14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15 Moreover the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high place he brake down, and burned the high place, and stamped it small to powder, and burned the grove.
16 And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchers that were there in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchers, and burned them upon the altar, and polluted it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
17 Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulcher of the man of God, which came from Judah, and proclaimed these things that you have done against the altar of Bethel.
18 And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones. So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria.
19 And all the houses also of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the LORD to anger, Josiah took away, and did to them according to all the acts that he had done in Bethel.
20 And he slew all the priests of the high places that were there upon the altars, and burned men’s bones upon them, and returned to Jerusalem.
21 And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.
22 Surely there was not held such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah;
23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this Passover was held to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24 Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.
25 And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.
 
Revelation 16
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up [so the evil in their words is seen], that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come [as words] out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame [they see that they waited for something that never came].
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon [the mountain of the rendezvous].
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightning; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon [confusion] came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
 
Revelation 17
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto you the judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters:
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman [God’s people in and under confusion] was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads [the seven churches] and ten horns [the civil government that rules over the world and God’s people].
8 The beast that you saw was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit [a product of the never-ending fall of man under his own ideas and ways], and go into perdition [which perishes]: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
9 And here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains [church that have risen out of the earth], on which the woman [God’s people in confusion] sits.
10 And there are seven kings [angels of the seven churches]: five are fallen, and one is [the angels of Philadelphia then remained], and the other is not yet come [Laodicea]; and when he comes, he must continue a short space.
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth [what comes after the seven- the eighth church of confusion that rules over all the world], and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.
12 And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings [civil government], which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour [the hour of temptation when men deny God’s presence] with the beast [with confusion].
13 These [civil governments] have one mind [all agree with the confusion that rules over the word as darkness], and shall give their power and strength unto the beast [confusion].
14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is LORD of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
15 And he saith unto me, The waters which you saw, where the whore sit, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
16 And the ten horns which you saw upon the beast, these [civil government] shall hate the whore [God’s people in and under confusion], and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
17 For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast [confusion], until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
18 And the woman which you saw is that great city [Babylon – confusion], which reigns over the kings of the earth.
 
Revelation 18
1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon [confusion] the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication [her interaction with the ideas and ways men have created], and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double [confusion turned into delusion] unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she has filled fill to her double.
7 How much she has glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the LORD God who judges her.

Is God punishing the world? And is it ending?

Is God punishing the world? And is it ending?
 
Someone made the comment to the previous post that God was, and I have often heard the false preachers predict it as what happens when God ends the world. First, the world doesn’t end; the age of ignorance and its darkness ends, meaning the confusion created by men, where they have twisted truth and destroyed all rational discourse to justify their evil deeds. The end is the return of the light, which we know is understanding. The destruction of the world is what would occur if the man caused darkness was allowed to continue. Self-inflicted destruction and the fall of nations do continue to come to those who by choice remain in the world of corrupt ideas/understanding as the foundation of their decisions.
 
Job 34
12 Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.
13 Who has given him a charge over the earth? or who has disposed the whole world? [He has taken this responsibility upon Him willingly.]
14 If he set his heart upon man, if he [were to] gather unto himself his spirit and his breath;
15 All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
16 If now you have understanding, hear this: hearken to the voice of my words.
17 Shall even he that hates right govern? and will you condemn him that is most just?
18 Is it fit to say to a king, You are wicked? and to princes, You are ungodly?
19 How much less to him that accept not the persons of princes, nor regard the rich more than the poor? for they all are the work of his hands.
20 In a moment shall they die, and the people shall be troubled at midnight, and pass away: and the mighty shall be taken away without hand.
21 For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he sees all his goings.
22 There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.
23 For he will not lay upon man more than right; that he should enter into judgment with God.
24 He shall break in pieces mighty men without number, and set others in their stead.
25 Therefore he knows their works, and he overturns them in the night, so that they are destroyed.
26 He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others;
27 Because they turned back from him, and would not consider any of his ways:
28 So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him, and he hears the cry of the afflicted.
29 When he gives quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hides his face, who then can behold him? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only:
30 That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.
31 Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement [correction], I will not offend any more:
32 That which I see not teach you me [teach me what I do not understand]: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.
33 Should it be according to your mind? he will recompense it, whether you refuse, or whether you choose; and not I: therefore speak what you know.
 
The phrase “world without end” appears twice in the word of God; the first in Isaiah 45:17 where it is from the Hebrew words ‘olam ‘ad, meaning into perpetuity. The verse uses Hebrew terms that say the name Jesus, Jehovah’s Salvation, and says He is the everlasting salvation of God’s people, and those who put their trust in Him shall not be ashamed (will receive what they expected), nor will they be confounded (confused – ruled by Babylon).
 
Isaiah 45
15 Truly you are a God that hides yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior.
16 They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols.
17 But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: you shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
18 For thus says the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he has established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
19 I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek you me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.
20 Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you that are escaped of the nations: they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image, and pray unto a god that cannot save.
21 Tell you, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who has declared this from ancient time? who has told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.
22 Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
23 I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
24 Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.
 
Hebrews 13
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.
11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
 
Friends, as we know and the ignorant and unlearned don’t, there is no end of the world, and it is the LORD’s self-assumed responsibility (to which He is uniquely qualified and capable) to ensure man doesn’t succumb to the will of the destroyers among us. The one who comes, who appears as light in the darkness, is Jehovah’s Salvation (JESUS) in the flesh man. Man is destroying himself and the world, and the LORD, as our Father intercedes with better ideas, which none of man’s ideas can stand against, and in whose presence they melt away in their own fire.
 
John 3
9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Are you a master of Israel, and know not these things?
11 Truly, truly, I say unto you, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and you receive not our witness.
12 If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
13 And no man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.
23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.
24 For John was not yet cast into prison.
25 Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying.
26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you barest witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him.
27 John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.
28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.
29 He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which stands and hears him, rejoice greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
31 He that comes from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaks of the earth: he that comes from heaven is above all.
32 And what he has seen and heard, that he testifies; and no man receives his testimony.
33 He that has received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
34 For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God: for God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him.
35 The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand.
36 He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.
 
The other time the phrase “world without end” appears is in Ephesians 3:21; there translated from the Greek words aionos ton aionon, literally saying, ages upon ages – into perpetuity.
 
Ephesians 3
1 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
2 If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
4 Whereby, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
6 That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.
8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;
9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our LORD:
12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.
13 Wherefore I desire that you faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,
21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
 
Psalms 104
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with honor and majesty.
2 Who covers yourself with light as with a garment: who stretches out the heavens like a curtain:
3 Who lays the beams of his chambers in the waters: who makes the clouds his chariot: who walks upon the wings of the wind:
4 Who makes his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.
6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they fled; at the voice of your thunder they hasted away.
8 They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which you have founded for them.
9 You have set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.
10 He sends the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills.
11 They give drink to every beast of the field: the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches.
13 He waters the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your works.
14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;
15 And wine that makes glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthens man’s heart.
16 The trees of the LORD are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he has planted;
17 Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.
18 The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for the conies.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knows his going down.
20 You makes darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.
21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
22 The sun arises, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.
23 Man goes forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening.
24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches.
25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
26 There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom you have made to play therein.
27 These wait all upon you; that you may give them their meat in due season.
28 That you gives them they gather: you opens your hand, they are filled with good.
29 You hide your face, they are troubled: you take away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
30 You send forth your spirit, they are created: and you renew the face of the earth.
31 The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.
32 He looks on the earth, and it trembles: he touch the hills, and they smoke.
33 I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.
34 My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.
35 Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless you the LORD, O my soul. Praise you the LORD.

Howl you; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

Howl you; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
 
The title is Isaiah 13:6 and is speaking of the destruction of Babylon and the Chaldees’ excellency, which we know is speaking of the confusion that rules over the world, and those who use deception to manipulate and control those they’ve first confused. We know this is speaking against the pop culture elites and the modern communists, the men of renown and brilliance, who infested and now control all our institution: church, education, government, and all the outlets of mass media (social and broadcast). Isaiah 13:16 says these places shall be as when the LORD overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, meaning they (the city of confusion and deception) shall never be inhabited again.
 
In Isaiah 13:11 the LORD says He will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver, and shall not delight in gold. Previously we have seen the translated name Medes describes the people of the middle land, who will not be deterred by the things the corrupt culture holds as valuable, in which they place their confidence.
 
To understand the pattern, we must at the very least look back several chapters. We know in Isaiah 8 we are told of the land that has become darkened as the leader of the time rejected God’s advice and instead made a confederacy with those there described as wizards that peep and mutter, which we know speaks of those who use their words specifically to manipulate people into doing their will. As this initially occurs we are told “Immanuel,” meaning God enters speaking through Isaiah, and the elect remnant are called away from joining them and are raised as if children God has given him. These are those who are for signs to be wondered at, who Isaiah 9 then speaks of as those upon who the LORD’s light has lighted.
 
Chapter 10 then begins with the LORD speaking to those who have decided to join with the foreign invaders and live under their ways. It goes on to describe this choice as what leads to the destruction of those who have chosen it, while at the same time the LORD says His hand is still stretched out to them, to pull them from the fires they’ve created.
 
Isaiah 10
16 Therefore shall the LORD, the LORD of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire.
17 And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day;
18 And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer faints.
19 And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them.
20 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21 The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.
22 For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.
23 For the LORD God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
24 Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts, O my people that dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite you with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against you, after the manner of Egypt.
25 For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.
26 And the LORD of hosts shall stir up a scourge for him according to the slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb: and as his rod was upon the sea, so shall he lift it up after the manner of Egypt.
 
We know verse 26 describe when Gideon and a small group put the Midianites to flight by nothing more than the sound of a trumpet, breaking pitchers, and a shout. Then at Oreb, all Ephraim, as God’s people in this latter day, were called and came to finish off those who were impoverishing God’s people. [See Judges 7:19 thru 25] Isaiah says this will be as when the waters of the Red Sea were parted, as were (are) God’s people divided, who coming together again consume these enemies who (had) have been our jailers.
 
Isaiah 30
13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly at an instant.
14 And he shall break it as the breaking of the potters’ vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit.
15 For thus says the LORD God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and you would not.
16 But you said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall you flee: and, We will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
17 One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall you flee: till you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill.
18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.
19 For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: you shall weep no more: he will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer you.
20 And though the LORD give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not your teachers be removed into a corner any more, but your eyes shall see your teachers:
21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way, walk you in it, when you turn to the right hand, and when you turn to the left.
 
Isaiah 11:15 & 16 end the chapter saying this is when the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea, and shall by His Spirit and His seven stream, shake His hand over their rivers, so His people can cross over. We know the tongue here is our captors, who have been holding us prisoner by words (of deception and manipulation) which flow like a river into the sea (the masses). The seven streams are logically seen as the word of God as His hand shaking over them. The passage goes on to say this will be as a highway (understood in conjunction with Isaiah 30:21 above) which shall be as in the day when God’s people came out of Egypt, meaning we are freed from our captivity.
 
Isaiah 11
15 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.
16 And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
 
Isaiah 12
1 And in that day you shall say, O LORD, I will praise you: though you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comforted me.
2 Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.
3 Therefore with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation [this word of God].
4 And in that day shall you say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted.
5 Sing unto the LORD; for he has done excellent things: this is known in all the earth.
6 Cry out and shout, you inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of you.
 
Isaiah 13
1 The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.
2 Lift you up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand [see Isaiah 11:5 above], that they may go into the gates of the nobles.
3 I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness.
4 The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts [of the armies of heaven] musters the host of the battle.
5 They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land [of confusion].
6 Howl you; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction [of confusion] from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt [the elements – the ideas upon which they have relied and used as the basis for all their decisions]:
8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travails: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel [akzariy – brave and couragous] both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light [God’s people who have lost their light/understanding]: the sun shall be darkened [the church no longer shining God’s light on the earth] in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine [civil government no longer reflecting the same light].
11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked [those refusing to let this word flow freely and in pure form into the sea] for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir [the wisdom of Solomon].
13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. [Verse 12 and 13 are referred to in Hebrews 12:25 thru 29, and the man is seen there as the one speaking wisdom more valuable than gold.]
14 And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.
15 Every one that is found [choosing to remain in confusion] shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.
16 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
17 Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.
18 Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eyes shall not spare children.
19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
21 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.
22 And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses [of Babylon], and dragons [death that lurks unseen below the surface – as in the deep state] in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.
 
Isaiah 14
1 For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
2 And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors [because they are lawless, and cannot be reasoned with].
3 And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear, and from the hard bondage wherein you were made to serve,
4 That you shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
5 The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked [the lawless who vilify truth with lies and false accusation], and the scepter of the rulers.
6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hinders.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing [when the wicked are defeated and bound].
8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at you, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since you are laid down, no feller is come up against us.
9 Sheol [the habitation of the dead] from beneath is moved for you to meet you at your coming: it stirs up the dead for you, even all the chief ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. [see Psalms 2 below]
10 All they shall speak and say unto you, Are you also become weak as we? are you become like unto us?
11 Your pomp is brought down to the grave [Sheol], and the noise of your viols: the worm is spread under you, and the worms cover you [those alive in the ever burning trash fires of Gehenna].
12 How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer [from halal, meaning men or renown, the famous preachers and elites in our time – see 2 Corinthians 10 below], son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see you shall narrowly look upon you, and consider you, saying, Is this the man [the humans – the wicked men of renown] that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword [this word of God], that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet.
20 You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, and slain your people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.
21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
22 For I will rise up against them, says the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon [confusion] the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, says the LORD.
23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says the LORD of hosts.
24 The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25 That I will break the Assyrian [those who teach that gain is godliness – who have prospered in/by their wickedness. Do you hear me yet?] in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
28 In the year that king Ahaz [who brought in Baal worship] died was this burden.
29 Rejoice not you, whole Palestina [those wallowing in their own wickedness], because the rod of him that smote you is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
30 And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill your root with famine, and he shall slay your remnant.
31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; you, whole Palestina [those wallowing in the wickedness – “sporting themselves with their own deceptions while they feast with you.”], are dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke [which shall chase out the vermin infesting God’s house], and none shall be alone in his appointed times.
32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the LORD has founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it.
 
Friends, again, we know the LORD’s anger and His wrath are expressed in words of correction, to save those who are destroying themselves and those they mislead. The destruction (perdition) comes only to those who choose to continue on the path they were on. The fear of the LORD should come when His anger and wrath are heard: to be feared knowing it means the person is nearing destruction and should turn.
 
Acts 17
… I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is LORD of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands [He dwell in bodies of man He has prepared for Himself, rising in them as He raises them to life];
25 Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the LORD, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commands all men every where to repent:
31 Because he has appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he has raised him [me] from the dead.
 
Psalms 2
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sits in the heavens shall laugh [at the futility of what they are attempting – as in the wink of Acts 17:30 above]: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak [correction] unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD has said unto me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
10 Be wise now therefore, O you kings: be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling [knowing you have been saved by His correction].
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
 
2 Corinthians 10
1 Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:
2 But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
7 Do you look on things after the outward appearance? if any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s.
8 For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the LORD has given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed:
9 That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.
10 For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.
11 Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.
12 For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
13 But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God has distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.
14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ:
15 Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men’s labors; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly,
16 To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s line of things made ready to our hand.
17 But he that glories, let him glory in the LORD.
 
1 Corinthians 2
1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the LORD of glory.
9 But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
10 But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God [see Deuteronomy 29:29].
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who has known the mind of the LORD, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.
 
1 Corinthians 3
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are you able.
3 For you are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as men?
4 For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are you not carnal [when you are divided by those you follow you are carnal – follow Christ who will rise in you if you are His]?
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the LORD gave to every man?
6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
7 So then neither is he that plants any thing, neither he that waters; but God that gives the increase.
8 Now he that plants and he that waters are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.
9 For we are laborers together with God: you are God’s husbandry, you are God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds thereon. But let every man take heed how he builds thereupon.
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14 If any man’s work abide which he has built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
16 Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
17 If any man defile the temple of God [by what he builds], him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.
18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
20 And again, The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
23 And you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

What is the blessed hope of those who know the LORD, who know by having loved and kept His word, and who have not denied His name (His manner and identity when He appears)?

What is the blessed hope of those who know the LORD, who know by having loved and kept His word, and who have not denied His name (His manner and identity when He appears)?
 
The answer is precisely given in Titus 2, and described in the question above: our hope is that the LORD will appear in the same manner as He has always appeared, as we are told in Hebrews 13. We know this manner by loving and keeping His word, as He told us, and is recorded in John 14.
 
Titus 2
11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men,
12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ;
14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
 
This hope in this life is what Job speaks of in Job 19, when he first speaks of his hope departing. Job’s apparent lack of understanding and his complaint was thinking his suffering was about him. [See 1 Peter 4:13] It was about those around him who thought they were righteous, and in persecuting him they exposed themselves as unrighteous.
 
1 Corinthians 11 tells us that these are the contentions that commonly occur among God’s people; verse 19 then giving the reason, saying, “19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved [by God] may be made manifest among you.”
 
This is what is said in ending the chapter as Job speaks of the resurrection on the flesh, on the earth present with the LORD his Redeemer. He then says of his friends, “But you should say, ‘Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?'”
 
Job 19
21 Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me.
22 Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?
23 Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
24 That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
25 For I know that my redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
27 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
28 But you should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?
29 Be you afraid of the sword: for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.
 
In Job 19 Job seems to vacillate between two opinions, initially not understanding and then later showing his knowledge. Verse 10 says, “He has destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope has he removed like a tree.” Job’s lack was not knowing the LORD’s manner and character (name); not knowing the LORD’s wrath is his correction, to save those He loves from themselves. This is the hope we have, which Job had lost.
 
The word rendered “hope” here is the Hebrew word tiqvah, literally meaning a cord, as what attaches us to what we know, but haven’t yet seen or experienced. It is the word rendered “expected” in Jeremiah 29:11 as the LORD tells of the end that is our hope, which will appear as it now has. He says it will come after the seventy years in Babylon [confusion] when He will raise up a prophet; these are speaking of the confusion that has ruled over us, and the LORD sending someone to clear up the understanding that had become mired. The LORD says this decline came by following the advice of false prophets and misleaders among us, who He says He hasn’t sent.
 
Jeremiah 29
4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon [from peace into confusion];
5 Build you houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;
6 Take you wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that you may be increased there, and not diminished.
7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall you have peace.
8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed.
9 For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, says the LORD.
10 For thus says the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place [of peace].
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected [tiqvah] end.
12 Then shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
13 And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.
14 And I will be found of you, says the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, says the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place [of peace] whence I caused you to be carried away captive [into confusion].
15 Because you have said, The LORD has raised us up prophets in Babylon;
16 Know that thus says the LORD of the king that sits upon the throne of David, and of all the people that dwells in this city, and of your brethren that are not gone forth with you into captivity;
17 Thus says the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.
18 And I will persecute them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and an hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them:
19 Because they have not hearkened to my words, says the LORD, which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but you would not hear, says the LORD.
 
Friends, the hope of the church is the LORD appearing as he said he would, manifesting himself to those who love and keep His word. I am the one He has sent, raised with Him and by Him from among the dead, to give this same life to as many as will receive Him. This is the hope of the church, that the LORD would appear to purify us and raise us up to where we shall forever be with Him.
 
John 14
…LORD, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him [We will live in him].
24 He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter [the Paraclete], which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
28 You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, you might believe.
 
Hebrews 13
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
10 We have an [spiritual and incorruptible] altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle [who serve the things they have made from their own imagination].
 
Deuteronomy 18
15 The LORD your God will raise up unto you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren, like unto me; unto him you shall hearken;
16 According to all that you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb [where He turned you from the ways learned in the captivity – and gave you His word from the Rock, who was Christ teaching us again God’s ways] in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
17 And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.
20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
21 And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?
22 When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously: you shall not be afraid of him.
 
These false prophets speak things they have created from their own imaginations, which never come because the LORD hasn’t sent them. They are those who’ve come in a long line of false prophets and false teachers, who have scattered the flock and left it defenseless. It is to this stronghold we are called to return, which is written of in Zachariah 9:12.
 
Zechariah 12
12 Turn [return] you to the strong hold, you prisoners of hope [tiqvah]: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto you;
13 When I have bent Judah [the leaders of God’s people] for me, filled the bow with Ephraim [God’s people in these latter days], and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece [yaven – those wallowing in the mire], and made you as the sword of a mighty man.
14 And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.
15 The LORD of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar.
16 And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones [Jewels] of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.
17 For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.
 
Zechariah 10
1 Ask you of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field.
2 For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.
3 Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats [those misleading the flock]: for the LORD of hosts has visited his flock the house of Judah, and has made them as his goodly horse in the battle.
4 Out of him came forth the corner, out of him the nail, out of him the battle bow, out of him every oppressor together.
5 And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because the LORD is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded.
6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the LORD their God, and will hear them.
 
We know when Zechariah speaks of the LORD hearing us it is referring to what He says in Isaiah 49:8, which after immediately tells us this is when the LORD says to the prisoners who have been held captive in the darkness, “Show yourselves.” He is speaking to us and of us.
 
Isaiah 49
1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, you people, from far; The LORD has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name.
2 And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand has he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver has he hid me;
3 And said unto me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
4 Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
5 And now, says the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.
6 And he said, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose you.
8 Thus says the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation have I helped you: and I will preserve you, and give you for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9 That you may say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.
10 They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.
11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.
12 Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim [double].
13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD has comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
14 But Zion said, The LORD has forsaken me, and my LORD has forgotten me.
15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you.
16 Behold, I have graven you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
17 Your children shall make haste; your destroyers and they that made you waste shall go forth of you.
18 Lift up your eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live, says the LORD, you shall surely clothe you with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on you, as a bride does.
19 For your waste and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed you up shall be far away.
20 The children which you shall have, after you have lost the other, shall say again in your ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.
21 Then shall you say in your heart, Who has begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been?
22 Thus says the LORD God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.
23 And kings shall be your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers: they shall bow down to you with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.
24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
25 But thus says the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contends with you, and I will save your children.
26 And I will feed them that oppress you with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am your Savior and your Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.
 
When Titus describes of this blessed hope, Paul says it is realized at the LORD’s glory “appearing.” As we know this is the same hope and glory he speaks of in 1 Thessalonians 2:19, manifested in those who have received Paul’s preaching and teaching as the word of God, as it is. Verse 19 says this is his hope, joy, and crown; which is that of those preaching the word. Paul then says of those hearing the word as such, that they are in the presence of the LORD at His coming, which he then says again in verse 20 is his glory (seeing the LORD in them, after their seeing Him in Paul) and joy.
 
The word used in Titus for this “appearing” is the Greek word epiphaneia, meaning to manifest, as in to become apparent. It is telling of something that was there but inconspicuous, which then becomes conspicuous. It is the same word rendered “brightness” in 2 Thessalonians 2:8 in telling of the destruction of the unreasonable and wicked men who are standing in the way of this word of God having free course. We know this course is to be glorified, which we also know is to be seen as the word of God, as it is.
 
2 Thessalonians 2
7 For the mystery of iniquity does already work: only he who now letteth [katecho – holds down] will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall that Wicked [the will the same unreasonable and wicked men spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 3] be revealed, whom the LORD shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness [epiphaneia] of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
13 But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the LORD, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification [separation from the lies, by] the Spirit and belief of the truth:
14 Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our LORD Jesus Christ.
 
2 Thessalonians 3
1 Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the LORD may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you [seen as the word of God]:
2 And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.
3 But the LORD is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep you from evil.
4 And we have confidence in the LORD touching you, that you both do and will do the things which we command you.
5 And the LORD direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ [to deliver us from these men as He now has].
 
1 Timothy 6
3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our LORD Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmising,
5 Perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw yourself.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. [Do you hear me yet – TV preachers and all other thieves and robbers?]
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto you are also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.
13 I give you charge in the sight of God, who quicken all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;
14 That you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing [epiphaneia] of our LORD Jesus Christ:
15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and LORD of lords;
16 Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.
17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy;
18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science [antithesis gnosis – referring to verses 3 thru 5 above – those who are teaching what they think they know, when they know nothing and teach the opposite of truth] falsely so called:
21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.
 
2 Timothy 1
6 Wherefore I put you in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the putting on of my hands.
7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
8 Be not you therefore ashamed of the testimony of our LORD, nor of me his prisoner: but be you partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
9 Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
10 But is now made manifest [to all who have loved and kept His word] by the appearing [epiphaneia] of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:
11 Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which you have heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
14 That good thing which was committed unto you keep by the Holy Ghost which dwells in us.
 
2 Timothy 4
1 I charge you therefore before God, and the LORD Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick [those who have been brought to life] and the dead at his appearing [epiphaneia] and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears [who will preach creations which people want to hear, not what they need to hear];
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
5 But watch you in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry.
6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the LORD, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing [epiphaneia].
 
Psalms 41
1 Blessed is he that considers the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.
2 The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and you will not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.
3 The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: you will make all his bed in his sickness.
4 I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against you.
5 Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?
6 And if he come to see me, he speaks vanity: his heart gathers iniquity to itself; when he goes abroad, he tells it.
7 All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt.
8 An evil disease, say they, cleaves fast unto him: and now that he lies he shall rise up no more.
9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.
10 But you, O LORD, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.
11 By this I know that you favor me, because mine enemy does not triumph over me.
12 And as for me, you uphold me in mine integrity, and set me before your face for ever.
13 Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.

Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.

Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
 
The above is Psalms 69:22 and appears in a prayer answered as part of the deliverance of the redeemed and their redeemer. The Psalm describes the mistreatment by the enemies before rescue comes, which we have discussed in some detail and thereby see coming, while we see the enemy is made entirely blind to the same events.
 
When people wonder how it is the wicked are apparently unable to see, the answer is herein revealed. They have become so busy hating us without a cause, so raptured in the lies they use to reproach the living God and those doing His will, that they reject reality because it contradicts and hampers their works. They make themselves ignorant and blind, unable to see this as the trap into which they have been baited. The snare is truth appearing as an inevitable and unstoppable reality, which validates those who have seen it coming, while removing the power to mislead and manipulate from those it exposes as deceivers.
 
Friends, we know there are some who will never give up their con, never admitting to the obvious truth. To do so would be to give up their positions and acknowledge they have known nothing except what they know naturally as brute beasts. They will never acknowledge the truth of this word of God, never hear its warnings or its calls to repentance and holiness. These are what should have been for their welfare, but instead, by choosing to remain in the darkness, they become trapped in what they could have escaped.
 
The redeemed are those who come out of darkness, by their Redeemer who came into it, into the form of sinful man to deliver us from evil, and away from the temptation to deny God is with us and in those who will receive Him.
 
Hebrews 13
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness [without desiring things that hinder our purification and deliverance]; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
10 We have an [spiritual and incorruptible] altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle [the corrupted house they have created and defiled with their own hands].
11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice [on the altar] of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name [His name is JESUS, JEHOVAH’S SALVATION COME IN THE FLESH – DWELLING IN OUR FLESH].
16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.
19 But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.
20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our LORD Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
 
The wicked are the false prophets, those we hear and see every day telling of what is to come, that never comes. Their predictions never appear because they are lies, made up stories meant to manipulate and control the ignorant and unlearned (those who’ve learned what is worthless and therefore in this context meaningless).
 
Jeremiah 4
21 How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
27 For thus has the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.
28 For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.
 
2 Peter 1
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our LORD Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. [As the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, when the deep (understanding) was darkened, and light came into being.]
 
2 Peter 2
1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you [as there was a serpent in Eden], who privily [from their own imaginations] shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the LORD that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth [the light] shall be evil spoken of [as it is now seen before the eyes of the world].
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingers not, and their damnation slumbers not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus [the deepest darkest abyss in Hades, wherein the earth the dead are housed], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly;
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9 The LORD knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
10 But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the LORD.
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceiving while they feast with you;
14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: a heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
15 Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness [who for hire agreed to curse God’s people – but God always interceded and he spoke only what God made him speak];
16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: [by] the dumb donkey speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the [false] prophet.
17 These [false prophets] are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever [they see nothing and continue to tell lies as the deep of truth, as a face seen reflected in the waters, is revealed before the eyes of all the world].
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness [God’s people who are enticed to lust for things that will never come, nor can they – because they are lies, and no lie is of the truth], those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire [the muddied waters stirred up as these men walked where they shouldn’t have and defiled what was before clear and pure].
 
Psalms 69
1 Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
3 I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.
4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away. [These men must understand, even if it was those before them that removed the standard, they are those who must replace it to its former position on high. This is the standard I have seen and the trumpet I have heard – and answered the call to come out from among the blinding foolishness.]
5 O God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from you.
6 Let not them that wait on you, O LORD God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake: let not those that seek you be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.
7 Because for your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered my face.
8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children.
9 For the zeal of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me.
10 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach.
11 I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them.
12 They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.
13 But as for me, my prayer is unto you, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of your mercy hear me, in the truth of your salvation.
14 Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
15 Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
16 Hear me, O LORD; for your lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of your tender mercies.
17 And hide not your face from your servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies.
19 You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before you.
20 Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
21 They gave me also gall [poison – what would produce death] for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
22 Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
24 Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your wrathful anger take hold of them.
25 Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute him whom you have smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom you have wounded.
27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into your righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.
29 But I am poor and sorrowful: let your salvation, O God, set me up on high.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bullock that has horns and hoofs.
32 The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
33 For the LORD hears the poor, and despises not his prisoners.
34 Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moves therein.
35 For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.
36 The seed also of his servants shall inherit it: and they that love his name shall dwell therein [In those who love Him He shall dwell, and they in Him].
 
Friends, the word above rendered “gall” is the Hebrew word ro’sh, a word only used twelve times, and which speaks of the corruption that comes when God’s life-giving waters are turned to poison: that which drain the life from man, when it is used to deceive and mislead.
 
Amos 6:12 uses the word as it describes those who have taken power over God’s people, who tell others they may not make mention of the LORD’s name. This is said as the opposite what is written above, and instead, these men offer what has been turned to gall [poison] and bitterness. Into this condition, the LORD appears to those who love and keep His word, and who have not denied His name, to deliver them from the hand in which they are held down.
 
Amos 6
1 Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria [where the idols are set in God’s place], which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!
2 Pass you unto Calneh [those who think they have everything], and see; and from thence go you to Hamath [those who trusted in the things they have built] the great: then go down to Gath [the winepress where My wrath was poured out] of the Philistines [where they wallowed in the mire of their making]: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?
3 You that put far away the evil day [the false prophets among you don’t see what is at hand], and [they by their blindness] cause the seat of violence to come near;
4 That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and [as evil shepherds] eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;
5 That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent [from their own imaginations] to themselves instruments of music, like David [like Timothy];
6 That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph [their brother who they sold into captivity, separation by their evil eye, and the darkness it produced].
7 Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet [their table that has become a snare] of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.
8 The LORD God has sworn by himself, says the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob [those who continue to wrestle with God’s words, not knowing it is His presence and glory], and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.
9 And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.
10 And a man’s uncle shall take him up, and he that burns him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with you? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold your tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.
11 For, behold, the LORD commands, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts. [houses of church and state, the whole house of David spoken of in Amos 9:11 & 12]
12 Shall horses run upon the rock [without slipping – away]? will one plow there with oxen [without removing the stones from the field]? for you have turned judgment into gall [ro’sh], and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock:
13 You which rejoice in a thing of naught, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?
14 But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation [as people who were not called God’s people, to whom He says, You are the people of God], O house of Israel, says the LORD the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath [from the time they cause you to trust in thing they have built with their own hands] unto the river of the wilderness [until these living waters come into the world become without form and void] .
 
Revelation 3
7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things says he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens;
8 I know your works: behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it: for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name.
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
10 Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which you have, that no man take your crown.
12 Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
13 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.
14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would you were cold or hot.
16 So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.
17 Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
22 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.
 
Amos 9
8 Behold, the eyes of the LORD God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob [those who wrestle with this word to their own destruction – when that which should have been for their welfare becomes as snare], saith the LORD.
9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword [by this rightly divided word], which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom [the places that have been infested by those who have chosen to sell that which would have been their birthright], and of all the heathen [those who claim they are God’s people, living in His land as if they are His people, but not knowing Him or believing He even exists], which are called by my name, says the LORD that does this.
13 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sows seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
14 And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, says the LORD your God.
 
Psalms 50:17 tells of these men, who speak of the LORD’s covenant, while the refuse His instruction and cast His word behind their backs. It is saying that if they would have listened to His instruction, this instruction and correction, they would have known His covenant and not done the evil it warns against.
 
Psalms 50
16 But unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare my statutes, or that you should take my covenant in your mouth?
17 Seeing you hate instruction, and cast my words behind you.
18 When you saw a thief [entering My house], then you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers [those who have been unfaithful to God].
19 You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things have you done, and I kept silence; you thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself: but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes.
22 Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.
 
Here is the covenant, and tell me what part don’t you understand? And I will reveal them to you if you are too blind to see. But understand, if this gospel it hid, it is hidden from those who are lost.
 
2 Corinthians 4
1 Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the LORD; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
 
Deuteronomy 29
18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall [ro’sh – if he preaches and teaches poison and death] and wormwood;
19 And it come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination [see 2 Peter 2:2 above] of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst: [see 1 Thessalonians 5:1 thru 7]
20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law: [see Revelation 22 below]
22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid upon it;
23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore has the LORD done thus unto this land? what means the heat of this great anger?
25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt [the land where they became captives to the ways they had learned – after they forgot God]:
26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
 
Revelation 22
1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.
5 And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the LORD God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the LORD God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keeps the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
9 Then said he unto me, See you do it not: for I am your fellow-servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
10 And he said unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He which testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, LORD Jesus.
21 The grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Be angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.

Be angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.

The title is Ephesians 4:26 & 27 and is telling of righteous indignation, justified anger against those using devilish tactics, which are the sins against the innocent mentioned in the verses prior. Chief among these sins is to lie against the truth, even using the word of God deceitfully, unusually with the intended purpose to produce unrighteous wrath – as in making false accusations as the reason to publicly crucify a person, or to vilify a group. As we know, because we have previously discussed it in detail, this is the way of the demagogue. They (the Democrats) use their accusations to vilify a group (old white men and adult white people in general), falsely accusing them of depriving some group of something of momentary importance. The agitated are usually the ignorant and uninformed who are therefore easily swayed and manipulated by lies and deceit. The demagogue (the new Democrats) uses this mass hysteria to propel themselves into power, now with claims of a coming communist utopia, which will rival the success of nations such as Venezuela, Cuba and all those other Central and South American paradises.

(This obvious falsity is meant to show the lies of the Democrats and the truth of reality they deny. In communism, only the elites, and the party perpetrating its evil, live as kings above the misery. Everyone else starves; maybe not at first, but when it collapses under its own false assumptions, when the practical effects in the application overtake the theoretical. This is what the news media hides from public view: the misery under communism, as is now on display in Venezuela where they are almost eating each other. The fake news media isn’t missing it – they are the mouthpieces of the communist movement, which they help hide behind labels such as “progressive,” “liberal,” and “socialist.” I have heard Chris Matthews (MSNBC) openly admit to being a Marxist, which is merely a form of socialism mixed with capitalism. Marxism was the means that finished the destruction of the middle class in Russia. It allowed the Bolsheviks (Leninists as Marxist demagogues – Russia’s Democrat labor party) to take power, and the Stalinists to turn it into full blown communism (and kill off tens of millions of their own people), inevitably collapsing when its lies were realized in the experience. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.)

The modern fake news media, the Pravda (the Russian news service that broadcasted only party propaganda – and reverse labels itself as truth, Pravda meaning truth) of our time and place, may or may not know they are who they are. Most are products of the modern education system that produces the ignorant and uniformed, who have also been groomed to be lazy and without curiosity. We know to well the many instances in recent years where they were told obvious lies, which they merely reported without any balance or investigation. They all turned out to be lies, which they again may not even know were exposed to those who listen and read things that don’t originate in their darkened disinformation abyss.

Friends, again I tell you what you already know. I remind you these people, the communist demagogues and their mouthpiece in the fake news media, have consciences that tell them there is nothing wrong with broadcasting obvious lies and using them for political purposes, as long as it gains their side power. There end, as we know, is to destroy our culture, so they can destroy our form of government and replace it with communism and all its misery. They will use any means no matter how evil. Our response, for now, must be to enlighten people – because they will not hear it from those whose intentions are to keep its light from all who haven’t seen or heard it. Most of all, don’t believe anything they say. They are liars, deceivers, using these as a tactic to manipulate the ignorant and uninformed held under their spell. There is no blue wave, white adults are not evil, the economy is good, Kavanaugh is not and never was a sexual predator, and Trump IS making America Great Again. More? Under Obama, you weren’t able to keep your doctor and health care costs didn’t decrease by $2,500 per family; we were not talking to moderates in Iran when He made the nuke deal they had no intention of keeping; a no-growth economy wasn’t the new normal, and America is not and has never been the root of all evil in the world.

Friends, be angry about these thing, and sin not. VOTE REPUBLICAN! Do not do as the enemy does – do not lie against the truth.

Ephesians 4
1 I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called,
2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One LORD, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the LORD, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20 But you have not so learned Christ;
21 If so be that you have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 That you put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
26 Be you angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27 Neither give place to the devil.
28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
32 And be you kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.

Psalm 27
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.
4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
6 And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD.
7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
8 When you saidst, Seek you my face; my heart said unto you, Your face, LORD, will I seek.
9 Hide not your face far from me; put not your servant away in anger: you have been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.
11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.
12 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.
13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
 
Continuing: today’s title is from Luke 3:7 and speaks to the same point as did the title of the previous post, which was also written by Luke and appears in Acts 2:40. In Luke 3 it is describing John (as the Holy Spirit) preaching purification to prepare the way of the coming LORD. In Acts, it is Peter, (Christ risen in him through a Holy Spirit produced understanding mind,) preaching the coming of the Holy Spirit to all who repent (are purified) and receive Him as the LORD rising in them.
 
Luke 3
…the word of God came unto John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
3 And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins;
4 As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the LORD, make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;
6 And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
7 Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
9 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
10 And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
11 He answered and said unto them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none [he doesn’t say – go force others to do this – by violence of church or government]; and he that has meat, let him do likewise.
12 Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?
13 And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.
14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.
15 And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;
16 John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I comes, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
17 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
 
Acts 2
1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.
6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
7 And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?
8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.
12 And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
13 Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, You men of Judaea, and all you that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:
15 For these are not drunken, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the LORD come:
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be saved.
22 You men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know:
23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
24 Whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
25 For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the LORD always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
27 Because you will not leave my soul in Hades [among the dead], neither will you suffer your Holy One to see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the ways of life; you shall make me full of joy with your countenance [presence].
29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades [among the dead], neither his flesh did see corruption.
32 This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he has shed forth this, which you now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he said himself, The LORD said unto my LORD, Sit you on my right hand,
35 Until I make your foes your footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made the same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both LORD and Christ.
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
43 And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
 
Many use these last verses to falsely say Christianity requires communism. The first difference is these people are not forced by government or other people to do anything. This is a choice to do or not do, and the proceeds of the choice to sell everything remain in the control of the seller, to distribute as they see people have an authentic need – not redistributed by the government after forced confiscation using the tax code, to buy votes and power. In our time, it deals with all men’s spiritual wealth, and once saved abandoning all the old ideas, and distributing to others whatever they need to survive, financial or spiritual – true religion. The word of God plainly says that we must all still work, and if any man refuses to work he should not be allowed to become a non-productive parasite on those who do work. (See 2 Thessalonians 3:10 thru 13)
 
The above speaks of the same distribution and receiving, the brotherly love discussed several posts ago. We saw it as “entertain strangers” in Hebrews 13:2, and as “hospitality” in Romans 12:13, both of these referring us to the “open door” of Revelation 3:8. We saw these in the context of the LORD’s words in John 10, saying He is the door through which every man must enter – the kingdom of God.
 
Hebrews 13
1 Let brotherly love [philadelphia] continue.
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained [philoxenos] angels unawares.
3 Remember them that are in bonds, as bound [joining] with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
4 Marriage [joining in a common bond] is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled [without corrupted idea]: but whoremongers [those who have sold themselves for mamonas – mammon: thing in which the world trust] and adulterers [those unfaithful to God] God will judge.
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness [Selah – think about it in the context of this conversation]; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats [not with things], which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
 
Romans 12 [AGAIN, read in the context of our conversation.]
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.
4 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
5 So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;
7 Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teaches, on teaching;
8 Or he that exhorts, on exhortation: he that gives, let him do it with simplicity; he that rules, with diligence; he that shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
9 Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love [philadelphia]; in honor preferring one another;
11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the LORD;
12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
13 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality [philoxenos].
14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
16 Be of the same mind one toward another [having all your ideas in common – with Christ’s – and for the common good – the general welfare, the civilization of the society]. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
18 If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men.
19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the LORD.
20 Therefore if your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head.
21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
 
Revelation 3 [in context]
7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things says he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens;
8 I know your works: behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it: for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name.
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews [see Luke 3:8 above], and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
10 Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation [from not understanding the LORD’s presence], which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which you have, that no man take your crown.
12 Him that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
13 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.
14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would you were cold or hot.
16 So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.
17 Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten [correct]: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
22 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.
 
John 10
1 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 To him the porter opens; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out [of corruption – the lies they are caught up in.]
4 And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
6 This parable spoke Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spoke unto them.
7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Truly, truly, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
10 The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flee: and the wolf catches [harpazo – raptures them in his idols – lies] them, and scatter the sheep.
13 The hireling flees, because he is an hireling, and cares not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
15 As the Father knows me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
17 Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
 
Now for a clarification of terms used above: the word “distributing” above in Romans 12:13 is the eight times used Greek word koinoneo, meaning to share with others. It is the same word rendered “communicate” in Galatians 6:6.
 
Galatians 6
1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.
2 Bear you one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
5 For every man shall bear his own burden.
6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate [koinoneo] unto him that teaches in all good things.
7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.
8 For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.
 
In the context of all above the word koinoneo is used in Hebrews 2:14 to tell of the common union we have with God, declaring His name unto the brethren. It says Christ took not the form of an angel, meaning not merely a message sent, but as did his brothers, he became a “partaker” in the flesh with us, and for us and in us destroyed death forever.
 
Hebrews 2
1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip [away].
2 For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;
3 How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the LORD, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
5 For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.
6 But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man that you visit him?
7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of your hands:
8 You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
10 For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
11 For both he that sanctifies [makes pure] and they who are sanctified [made pure] are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
12 Saying, I will declare your name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto you.
13 And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God has given me.
14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers [koinoneo] of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
16 For truly he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to succor [rescue] them that are tempted. [Overcoming the temptation, knowing by faith, God is with us for our Salvation.]
1 Peter 1
20 Who truly was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
22 Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren [philadelphia], see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently:
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever.
24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away:
25 But the word of the LORD endures for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
 
1 Peter 2
1 Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking,
2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby:
3 If so be you have tasted that the LORD is gracious.
4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,
5 You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
 
1 Peter 3
8 Finally, be you all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren [philadelphos], be pitiful, be courteous:
9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that you are thereunto called, that you should inherit a blessing.
10 For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
12 For the eyes of the LORD are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the LORD is against them that do evil.
13 And who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?
14 But and if you suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are you: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
15 But sanctify the LORD God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that askes you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
 
Psalms 32
1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile [deception or manipulation].
3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
5 I acknowledge my sin unto you, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto you in a time when you may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.
7 You are my hiding place; you shall preserve me from trouble; you shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I will guide you with mine eye.
9 Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they [the floods] come near unto you.
10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about.
11 Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous: and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart.
 
Job 38
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2 Who is this that darkened counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Gird up now your loins like a man; for I will demand of you, and answer you me.
4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if you have understanding.
5 Who has laid the measures thereof, if you know? or who has stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,
10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further: and here shall your proud waves be stayed?
12 Have you commanded the morning since your days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?

Save yourselves from this untoward generation!

Save yourselves from this untoward generation!
 
Continuing: I have heard many of the self-defined “experts” calling of unity, and saying we should come together in compromise with the radicalized leftists and anarchists. This is a disingenuous impossibility proposed by those who first advised us into self-neutering and national suicide; who now encourage us to get back on that track so they can finish their work. Compromise with insanity and irrationality means reverse defining them as the sane and rational, and denying the effects: the self-evident truth seen in their endless agitation, ignorance, confusion, and mass misery.
 
Self-evident truth, the law nature, and nature’s God, prove their validity in the experience/experiment ending in consistent and inevitable effect/results that come by a known cause they define. These historically proven ideas are known, learned throughout time as these same causes produced the same results. In the previous post, we discussed this concept of these first principles of human interaction, described the necessity to understand them as what we as a people of God have just gone through, and in which many, most, remain. It is the darkness that comes when we first ignore what was learned, then completely forgot it, and lastly teach and propagate their antithesis. We must understand this to understand the light: the LORD again sending us understanding, to awaken us and set us on a course for correction. In this state of death, we are called to come to the light, as we should in like manner call all.
 
Job 34
12 Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.
13 Who has given him a charge over the earth? or who has disposed the whole world?
14 If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath;
15 All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.
16 If now you have understanding, hear this: hearken to the voice of my words.
17 Shall even he that hates right govern? and will you condemn him that is most just?
18 Is it fit to say to a king, You are wicked? and to princes, You are ungodly?
19 How much less to him that accepts not the persons of princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor? for they all are the work of his hands.
20 In a moment shall they die, and the people shall be troubled at midnight, and pass away: and the mighty shall be taken away without hand.
21 For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he sees all his goings.
22 There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.
23 For he will not lay upon man more than right; that he should enter into judgment with God.
24 He shall break in pieces mighty men without number, and set others in their stead.
25 Therefore he knows their works, and he overturns them in the night, so that they are destroyed.
26 He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others;
27 Because they turned back from him, and would not consider any of his ways:
28 So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him, and he hears the cry of the afflicted.
29 When he gives quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hides his face, who then can behold him? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only:
30 That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.
31 Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more:
32 That which I see not teach you me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more.
33 Should it be according to your mind? he will recompense it, whether you refuse, or whether you choose; and not I: therefore speak what you know.
34 Let men of understanding tell me, and let a wise man hearken unto me.
 
When verse 14 & 15 say that if the LORD were to take His Spirit (the Holy Ghost) out of the world, all flesh would again turn to dust, Elihu (Jehovah God) is describing the LORD’s position as the benevolent overseer of humanity. He is the same Creator the founders said has endowed us with certain inalienable rights: rights that cannot be separated from us by any human power, and among these rights are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
 
Those who in the past, and now AGAIN, call us to compromise are those who under the disguise of redefinition have altered the meaning of all the above to justify doing their opposite. They are those who relabeled killing unborn humans as “choice,” and altering the meaning of life descended into violent delusion. We are now hearing these same degenerates call for the outright murder of those who oppose their demands we accepting their redefinitions and continue in the fall away from reality and science (which they have also redefined to mean statistical manipulation and consensus: popular opinion in accord with popular prejudices).
 
Peter addresses these types and the redefinition of liberty, saying in 2 Peter 2 they promise liberty while they are themselves the servants of corruption. Corruption is the degeneration, the decay, of something from its intended or genuine from, which in the case of liberty, it is away from it and into a return of a more primitive understanding. That former time was when those in power and position thought they had some divine right to rule over those less than them, in any way that served their desires and lust. It is against these men, and these ideas, the LORD comes with Salvation, releasing the waters (His ideas and truth) He has reserved for this time and purpose. These are His word reserved in His storehouse in heaven, released in His time by His power to rightly divide and broadcast it, as His latter rain.
 
2 Peter 2
17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
 
2 Peter 3
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the LORD and Savior:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The LORD is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the LORD will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements [stoicheion – these men’s corrupted ideas] shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works [all that these men have created] that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements [stoicheion – these men’s ideas] shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our LORD is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him has written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 You therefore, beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
 
We have many times in the past discussed the law separation as one of the first principles in the law of nature and nature’s God. It says – in a society that relies on teaching God’s ways of peace and civilization, producing the maximum possible state of liberty by each person self-governing, thereby negating the need for endless laws to govern, there will inevitably be those who know the law but refuse to abide it. These are the lawless, the wicked who cannot be reasoned with, who refuse correction and become incorrigible. The law of nature, God’s law, and now the law of all partially civilized societies, tell us the only option with these people is separation. They cannot be compromised with because they abide by no rules, and their word means nothing. As we see and have seen, their only rule is they have no rules, and their words are with intention meant for nothing other than to deceive and manipulate those they control into doing their will. These people have altered all truth and replaced it with accusation and opinion. They censor away any and soon all opposition, knowing their distorted and dystopian reality is the darkness that cannot survive in the light of truth and reason. The truth and those who speak it are their existential enemy and must, by any means, disregarding all rules, be kept out and away from their darkness.
 
The logic is – light cannot compromise with the darkness, only destroy it. Conversely, darkness has no effect on the light, and can only exist if it first extinguishes the light. If the light refuses to be extinguished darkness can and does only survive by retreating. So, we must let OUR light shine, which means boldly and courageously proclaiming truth and reason; but beware that the light that is in you isn’t darkness, that the truth you proclaim isn’t leavened with lies.
 
Matthew 6
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven [these ideas of God, His truth and His ways of peace and salvation], where neither moth nor rust does corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single [hapluos – actually meaning not filled: not altered by worldly riches, or by what is gained in the corrupted world], your whole body shall be full of light.
23 But if your eye be evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [mamonas – what the world trusts in and where it puts its confidence].
 
Matthew 5
1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For truly I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness [your propensity toward truth, right and equitable judgment] shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
 
It is time to separate the wheat from the tares. The LORD tells us this time is when those who are His will gather to Him, as birds in the branches of a mustard tree. He says it is after the kingdom has become fully corrupted – as if an unfaithful woman working leaven into a lump of meal. “Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the” religious sects.
 
Matthew 13
31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
33 Another parable spoke he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
34 All these things spoke Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spoke he not unto them:
35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
37 He answered and said unto them, He that sows the good seed is the Son of man;
38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels [His messengers – the elect remnant], and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who has ears to hear, let him hear.
44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.
45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.
49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
51 Jesus said unto them, Have you understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, LORD.
52 Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which brings forth out of his treasure things new and old.
53 And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence.
54 And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence has this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?
55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
56 And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then has this man all these things?
57 And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.
58 And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
 
When the word of God speaks of the unfaithful woman it is as is spoken of at the beginning of Isaiah 50. In verse 3 the LORD then asks the question, “Is My hand shortened at all, that I cannot redeem?” He then goes on to describe His deliverance and the response of those receiving i t. The same question is later answered in Isaiah 59:1 where He tells us it the iniquity of men, which is what keeps them from seeing His face. This refers us to Hebrews 12:14, saying, “Follow [God’s ways of] peace with all men, and holiness [purification from corruption], without which no man shall see the LORD.” We also know this same refusal to be purified from corruption, and it being what hide the gospel from incorrigible men, is written of in 2 Corinthians 4. “3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
 
Isaiah 50
1 Thus says the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have you sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.
2 Wherefore [because of the corruption worked in by the unfaithful churches], when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stink, because there is no water, and die for thirst.
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
4 The LORD God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens mine ear to hear as the learned.
5 The LORD God has opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7 For the LORD God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
8 He is near that justifies me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.
9 Behold, the LORD God will help me; who is he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth [their own corruption] shall eat them up.
10 Who is among you that fears the LORD, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walk in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.
11 Behold, all you that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that you have kindled. This shall you have of mine hand; you shall lie down in sorrow.
 
Isaiah 59
1 Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
3 For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness.
4 None calls for justice, nor any pleads for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
5 They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eats of their eggs dies, and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.
6 Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
8 The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
9 Therefore is judgment far from us, neither does justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.
11 We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
14 And judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
15 Yea, truth fails; and he that departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
16 And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.
18 According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense.
19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, says the LORD.
21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the LORD; My spirit that is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed’s seed, says the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
 
Psalms 49
1 Hear this, all you people; give ear, all you inhabitants of the world:
2 Both low and high, rich and poor, together.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
4 I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?
6 They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches;
7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
8 (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceases for ever:)
9 That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.
10 For he sees that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.
11 Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man being in honor abides not: he is like the beasts that perish.
13 This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.
14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.
15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
16 Be not you afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased;
17 For when he dies he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
18 Though while he lived he blessed his soul: and men will praise you, when you do well to yourself.
19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light.
20 Man that is in honor, and understands not, is like the beasts that perish.
 
Psalms 50
1 The mighty God, even the LORD, has spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined.
3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.
4 He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.
5 Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.
6 And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.
7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, even your God.
8 I will not reprove you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.
9 I will take no bullock out of your house, nor he goats out of your folds.
10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you: for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof.
13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay your vows unto the most High:
15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
16 But unto the wicked God says, What have you to do to declare my statutes, or that you should take my covenant in your mouth?
17 Seeing you hate instruction, and cast my words behind you.
18 When you saw a thief, then you consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.
19 You give your mouth to evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
20 You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.
21 These things have you done, and I kept silence; you thought that I was altogether such an one as yourself: but I will reprove you, and set them in order before your eyes.
22 Now consider this, you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.

Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
 
Friends, only those who have loved and kept the LORD’s word see and hear the above events occurring before the eyes of all the world. It is not unique to our time in any sense other than now it is intended to separate the living from the dead and define them by their God-given capacity to see it and understand its reality.
 
Job 38
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brakes forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,
10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
11 And said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further: and here shall your proud waves be stayed [here is where the pride of man ends its rule]?
12 Have you commanded the morning since your days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
15 And from the wicked their light is withheld, and the high arm shall be broken.
16 Have you entered into the springs of the sea? or have you walked in the search of the depth?
17 Have the gates of death been opened unto you? or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
18 Have you perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if you know it all.
19 Where is the way where light dwells? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
20 That you should take it to the bound thereof, and that you should know the paths to the house thereof?
 
The last verse above asks who now understands the path that has taken all the world into the house of darkness, under the shadow of death. Only in understanding what we (humanity) have just been through, and where (in darkness) most still remain, even those who think they are enlightened, do we know the light. We comprehend the light as understanding God’s ways, and void of it is the darkness in corrupted man: their pride and “know it all” perspective showing them as those who’ve led the world into the fires.
 
Matthew 18
1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
3 And said, Truly I say unto you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receives me.
6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
7 Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence comes!
8 Wherefore if your hand or your foot offend you, cut them off, and cast them from you: it is better for you to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
9 And if your eye offend you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: it is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into Gehenna fire.
10 Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
 
The “offenses” spoken of above come when false prophets and false teachers catch those who become as children: willing and eager to learn at the feet of the LORD, and instead teach them the same old corrupted doctrines of men. Instead of leading them into the kingdom of heaven, by giving them these living waters in the name of the LORD, they lead them deeper into darkness. Those who perpetrate these offenses are the corrupted hands and feet, who have eyes that lead men into Gehenna (the trash heap outside God’s city, where the fires never stop).
 
We must separate God’s truth from their darkness, and not become as Esau, those who sell their birthright, and rejecting the word, choose to remain lame and unhealthy. When Hebrews 12 speaks of this it goes on to say we are not those who have come to the mountain of God as when ignorance and darkness ruled the minds of men and the fires burned. It says their condition resulted from rejecting correction, as did Esau, choosing instead to interact (fornicate) with those rejecting God, and making idols in His place. Verse 19 says these are those who entreated (demanded) that word should no longer be spoken to them, and remaining as beasts in their nature they were unable to approach God. Verse 20 then tells us these choices are what cause the quaking, which is later spoken of as coming with the one speaking the word of God, shaking heaven and earth so these wicked men, who’ve chosen to remain lame, would be shaken from them.
 
It is in this context Hebrews 12:22 says, those who have heard and been corrected into health, have come instead to heavenly Jerusalem and into the general assembly of the church of the firstborn. This is possible by our choice to hear the one speaking, who is the LORD speaking Jehovah’s Salvation (Jesus), manifested in the mediator, who we are urged to hear. He is speaking the plan of our escape from the corruption of these same wicked and unreasonable men. This is what Hebrews 13 then speaks of, not saying that we shouldn’t be joined with others, but rather to be sure those we join with aren’t lying in a defiles bed (of corruption). The place we meet is outside the camp, joining together with the LORD bearing His reproach.
 
Hebrews 12
11 Now no chastening [correction] for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby [those from whom the corruption is worked out].
12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame [halt] be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.
14 Follow [God’s ways of] peace with all men, and holiness [purification from corruption], without which no man shall see the LORD:
15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator [interaction with idols], or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
17 For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
18 For you are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated [demanded] that the word [flowing from God] should not be spoken to them any more:
20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:
21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)
22 But you are come unto mount Zion [where God reigns and rules in our minds], and unto the city of the living God [living in us], the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels [messengers of God],
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.
25 See that you refuse not him that speaks. For if they escaped not who refused him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaks from heaven:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
29 For our God is a consuming fire.
 
Hebrews 13
1 Let brotherly love [Philadelphia – see Revelation 3 below] continue.
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers [Philoxenos, referring to verse 1 and the open door referred to in Revelation 3:7 & 8 – it is the hospitality (the word only appearing these two times) Paul describes in Romans 12:13 as he tells of giving and receiving, saying, “Distributing to the necessity of the saints, pursuing hospitality”] for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
3 Remember them that are in bonds [as we saw in the prior post in Ezekiel 4:8 and Ephesians 6:20], as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
4 Marriage [joining together in a bond] is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers [those who have sold themselves, as did Esau] and adulterers [those who have been unfaithful and left God of idols] God will judge.
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for he has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.
6 So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
10 We have an [spiritual] altar [in our understanding], whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle [what they have made with their own hands: the natural house].
11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.
12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood [speaking better things than Abel], suffered without the gate.
13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach [the reproach of those who reproach the LORD, has fallen on me].
14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come [that is now coming upon all the earth, as it is in heaven].
15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name [Jesus, Jehovah’s Salvation come in the flesh, our flesh].
16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.
19 But I beseech you the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.
20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our LORD Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: for I have written a letter unto you in few words.
23 Know you that our brother Timothy is set at liberty [sent on this mission – and now standing at/as the opened door]; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.
24 Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.
25 Grace be with you all. Amen.
Revelation 3
7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things says he that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens;
8 I know your works: behold, I have set before you an open door [see John 10 below], and no man can shut it: for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name.
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews [the chosen people of God and have right to His kingdom], and are not, but do lie [the reason for their rejection – they refuse the love of God’s truth and deny He has come in the flesh]; behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
10 Because you have kept the word of my patience [waiting for the LORD’s timing and knowing He will come for our Salvation], I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which you have, that no man take your crown.
12 Him that overcomes [the unfaithful men who have worked their corruption into the whole lump] will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
13 He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches.
 
John 10
1 Truly, truly, I say unto you, He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 To him the porter opens; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out [of corruption – the lies they are caught up in.]
4 And when he puts forth his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
6 This parable spoke Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spoke unto them.
7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Truly, truly, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
10 The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flee: and the wolf catches [harpazo – raptures them in his idols – lies] them, and scatter the sheep.
13 The hireling flees, because he is an hireling, and cares not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
15 As the Father knows me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
17 Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
19 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings.
20 And many of them said, He has a devil, and is mad; why hear you him?
21 Others said, These are not the words of him that has a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.
24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long do you make us to doubt? If you be the Christ, tell us plainly.
25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.
26 But you believe not, because you are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck [harpazo] them out of my hand. [no man will rapture them away with lies, out of the LORD’s hand, where He holds them in His truth]
29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck [harpazo – rapture] them out of my Father’s hand.
30 I and my Father are one.
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?
33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone you not; but for blasphemy; and because that you, being a man, make yourself God [our Judge].
34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods [judges]?
35 If he called them gods [judges], unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36 Say you of him, whom the Father has sanctified [purified for this purpose], and sent into the world, You blaspheme; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38 But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works: that you may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
39 Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,
40 And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode.
41 And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spoke of this man were true.
42 And many believed on him there.
 
1 John 3
1 Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not.
2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
4 Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
5 And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins [take away our straying into error, by correction]; and in him is no sin [error].
6 Whosoever abides in him sins not [does not remain in error – does not by choice stay lame]: whosoever sins has not seen him, neither known him.
7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
8 He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works [the willful deception causing His people to stray from Him] of the devil.
9 Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother [as in Philadelphia – distributing God’s correction to the saints, and receiving those who come from God, in His name, with this message].
11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
13 Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.
14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.
15 Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17 But whoso has this world’s good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him?
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.
20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
24 And he that keeps his commandments dwells in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.
 
1 John 4
1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Hereby know you the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
 
(2 Corinthians 3
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the LORD, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the LORD is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD.
2 Corinthians 4
1 Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the LORD; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.)
 
1 John 4
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world hears them.
6 We are of God: he that knows God hears us; he that is not of God hears not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.
8 He that loves not knows not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12 No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him, and he in God.
16 And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.
17 Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loves God love his brother also.
 
1 John 5
1 Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loves him that begat loves him also that is begotten of him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.
5 Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
6 This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.
7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son.
10 He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself: he that believes not God has made him a liar; because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son.
11 And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life.
13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.
14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us:
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
18 We know that whosoever is born of God sins not; but he that is begotten of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not.
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness.
20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
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